Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Marriage on Trial

The Iowa Supreme Court begins hearing a case that could bring gay marriage to Iowa. Battleground has a link to where you can listen to the proceedings. To be really honest I feel pessimistic about this trial. I think it has to do with how quickly the moral foundation of our country has been compromised. Less than nine years ago someone told be that this day would come, I didn’t believe them. I could never foresee our government thrown out the institution of marriage. I also didn’t see the quick march to socialism either but that’s what we have here today.

One of the things that bothers me the most about this case is how it ended up in the courts. You may remember it was the Democrat “leaders” in the State House and Senate who punted the issue to them because there was no way they would go on record by voting on whether or not gay and lesbian couples should be afforded special rights that allow them to marry. Ahhhh politics.

Jan Michelson had a great show yesterday about this. He talked about how No Fault Divorces have already gutted the institution of marriage. If the courts allow gay marriage in our state, our first action item should be to revoke our No Fault Divorce laws. Marriage isn’t something you do for a few years. The liberals on the left want to make this about health benefits and emergency room visitation, that’s just a sham.

Marriage is a blessing of the church. It is the joining of a man and woman before the eyes of their God, family and friends.

All government does is issue a license that says you can hold your assets jointly for tax and inheritance purposes. That isn't marriage. Nor should the government be involved in discrimination in issuing such a license.

As a small government conservative, I don't want the government conducting bedroom checks. We need to define marriage as an institution of the church and rename the government license to whatever pleases the masses.

The danger in this case is that this should be a Freedom of Religion matter, which is outside the scope of the court. Church leaders should be answering the question of whether gays can marry, not judges.

As far as licensing goes, if John and Don want to risk combining assets for tax purposes, I don't see why they shouldn't be able to. What they do in the privacy of their home is their concern. God will be their judge on that matter at the end.

This morning on CNN they actually said "this is typical Chicago politics." Did anyone, ever, in the last 18 months, hear CNN say anything bad about Chicago politics? Or the Times? Or anyone besides FNC? Seriously, I'm curious if anyone did.

Family structure has a major impact on our government. Messed up families mean a bigger welfare state. No-fault divorce, same-sex relationship (which studies show are often more volitile than heterosexual relationships) all add to this problem. How's that for a conservative argument.

The government has a vested interest in promoting traditional families, and to ignore this fact shows a bias in your reasoning.

The government has zero business is "licensing" marriage. It is none of their business. None. it is a matter between individuals and their church if they're so inclined.

Maybe someday republicans will get the message that using government to advance their social viewpoints only comes back to bite them in the ass.

People can "marry" whoever or whatever they wish. Two men can say they're married, two women, three women and one man, a man and a goat. They can all proclaim that they're married. Just don't expect normal people to view your "marriage" as anything other than a pathetic freak show and don't expect the government to force others to recognize it either.

You say the government has no business licensing marriages. But when the government provides various legal benefits to married couples that are not given to unmarried persons (tax benefits, intestate succession, etc.), doesn't the government then have an interest in defining which citizens get these benefits?

The logic of your argument would suggest that the government also has no interest in providing those kinds of legal benefits to married couples, regardless of how it is defined. Is that really your position?

Don't get me wrong, I'm a conservative who supports traditional marriage... but Krusty, I think you were sloppy in a klown kind of way today. Moral issues kount, the foundation indeed has kracks. Yet you portray this issue as a democrat dodge by omission? Certainly it can be said that Dem's didn't want to polarize the electorate by handling (blessing) the third rail of traditional morality and can you blame them? They made a brilliant tactical move here. Therein is the real problem and it's not a church-state issue, it's:

***Judicial Activism!!***

I'm not an attorney, and I don't play one on TV, but here's the law school verion of our problem:

"Judicial activism is the view that the Supreme Court and other judges can and should creatively (re)interpret the texts of the Constitution and the laws in order to serve the judges' own visions regarding the needs of contemporary society. Judicial activism believes that judges assume a role as independent policy makers or independent "trustees" on behalf of society that goes beyond their traditional role as interpreters of the Constitution and laws. The concept of judicial activism is the polar opposite of judicial restraint."

How long will it take us to undo this damage? Best case scenario: we benefit from another Republican revolution similar to 1994 and we are STILL HAMSTRUNG by the judiciary for a generation.

Herein lie the real consequences of our kollapse! This is why we have to stop justifying failure and understand the devastation kaused by Vilsak-Culver and soon...Obama.

Herein lies some clarity, that once understood, should kause us to join up and unify as never before so we can put a stop to this before the damage of socialism, nationalism and judicial activism tears our konstition apart!

Republicans need to go back to school and major in kommon sense. Let's stop majoring in minor things and turn our attention and passion to the real threats, long and short term!

Talk to any voter and they'll tell you they have no clue who these judges are that appear on the ballots. They play voter tic tac toe and fill in a few dots here and there without a klue! Remember too that we get the priviledge to vote for precious few judges and the rest are protected from voter "restraint" via lifetime appointments, etc!

Instead of becoming furious at the Democrats for this tactic, we sit on our lazy a**'s and for those who do vote, we walk out of the booth with our heads in the sand....or worse!

Sorry for the length but as Forest Gump says, "That's all I have to say about thaaaat!"

Tibby, to be totally true to our judicial-activism aversion, we ourselves must get out of our very public habit of going "judge-hunting" when it suits us on one issue or another. We do it regularly and inevitably it does come back to bite us on the ass (said phrase used already today by someone on Krusty's blog). The most glaring example and the only one that immediately satnds out to me was the Terry Schiavo matter.

Wow. I thought a day was going to go by without the word "bigot" being used on this blog. 11:59 thanks for not letting me down. I was scared you actually would expand your vocabulary today, but you proved me wrong.

11:59 - So inotherwards those that don't agree with your beliefs are a bunch of backward ignorant savages? Isn't that the argument the Europeans made when they colonized pagan nations and Christianized them?

How are you anything other than a moral conquistador, being that the large majority of Americans are heterosexual?

Marriage as a "holy institution" has already been trashed by the heteros. What percent of church officiated marriages end in divorce? How many friends/relatives do you have who have been divorced? Why shouldn't we let the gays suffer like the rest of us that are married?

eliminate the tax benefits of marriage and suddenly this will go away--it is all about money and to some degree a liberal social agenda.If you let anyone combine assets (a la suggested above) for tax purposes, then EVERYONE would do it--you'd be an idiot to file single...everyone find a buddy and lets do our taxes!

Tax benefits for those with children and the home mortgage dedution are excellent examples of social enginering by gov't that really do some good. There are many other bad ones. If you want to get rid of them all, feel free to waste you vote on Ron Paul.What happened to all you RP people!

Appreciate your mention of my name in your column Krusty and wanted to ad a couple thoughts to your analysis.First off under weaknesses you mention I am not well known- which seems to be the weakness you show for several of the candidates. Maybe to a lot of outside people that is true, but I might venture to say that to many of the activists in the state I am well known.I have been involved with local GOP politics since I was recruited by a Reagan fan to work for him in 1976.Shortly there after I was elected Precinct Chair and served on the Hardin County CC for the better part of 30 years. I was unanimously elected County Chair to reunite it after a few years of in fighting and just recently stepped down to Co-Chair. I think I leave my tenure as Hardin County Chair resulting in one the best and most active County Central Committees in the state. During this period I have been on three Distric and two State Permanent Organization Committees, being State Chair once, have addressed the State Convention and in 2008 was also elected the 4th District Convention Chair in Ft Dodge. I have also been the Campaign manager and consultant for the last four District 44 State Representative races. We won all four despite being targeted in the top three statewide races by the Democrats and being outpsent nearly three to one in 06 and 08. Do I understand what it takes to win these races? I think so and if any doubts contact Polly Granzow, Annette Sweeney or Linda Upmeyer and ask them. My activism within the party over the last 30 years at the grassroots County, District and State levels I believe has given me an accurate read of where we have failed, what we have done right and most important what we need to do. So am I am a marque name to many? no probably not - but am I an unknown without a track record? I think not- ask any of our elected officials and leaders - Grassley, Latham, Northey, McKinley, Upmeyer, Mosely, Iverson, Roberts- the list goes on- not that they are endorsing me but rather am I an unknown to them and what my behind the scenes election work record has been.Do I have a plan? It is probably more of an outline of problems and suggestions. The plan needs to come from all Republicans statewide. From a united SCC with candiates and Statehouse input.The Party needs to be rebuilt - from the ground up not by edict from the top down. In real estate it location, location, location- in politics its communication, communication, communication! We need to emplement 21st Century communication and ideas to rebuild our base. I think maybe I have a better idea than any other candidate as to the grassroots Iowa Republicans thoughts. They want to unite not divide our party with rhetoric. They want to be heard not preached to or even worse ignored. But most important they want to win and will pay the price to do so if given the vehicle and a cohesive message to do so.Andy Cable